Dusted Off: Books

In the 50th anniversary edition, Christianity Today published their take on the top 50 books in evangelicalism’s last 50 years (H/T Ref21). I’ve read a decent-sized chunk of those. I’ve got my fingers on the pulse of evangelicalism, I guess. Some of those titles are frightening. Simply frightening (and I’ve read some of those I call that!)

Does it matter? Does anyone care what a movement considers important? What a magazine considers important? Yes. Tim Challies outdid himself today with his post, By Our Books Shall We Be Known. Challies quotes, Jay Parini’s essay “Other People’s Books” (which I clearly need to find):

What interests me about other people’s books is the nature of their collection. A personal library is an X-ray of the owner’s soul. It offers keys to a particular temperament, an intellectual disposition, a way of being in the world. Even how the books are arranged on the shelves deserves notice, even reflection. There is probably no such thing as complete chaos in such arrangements.

Other people’s books draw my attention, of course. They excite curiosity about their owners and the worlds they inhabit. But it’s finally my own books that matter, as they tell me about where I’ve been, and where I hope to go.

If that doesn’t describe my psyche, I don’t know what does. (other than a nasty coal mine…but that’s another post for another time)

The rest of the post is just as incisive. Other than the stuff about film, I like to think I’d have written the same thing–were I as talented as Challies, or took the time.